LITERARY NOTES. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Paris, December 5.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2115, 28 January 1886, Page 4

LITERARY NOTES. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Paris, December 5.

Rack and education make a man. M. Gruyer applies this test to Charles IX., of unenviable memory, a monarch who had in him the blood of the Valois, mixed with that of the Medecis. His patei ntl ancestors were Henri 11. and Francois I. On the side of his mother, C'atheiine do Medecis, he inherited nn Italian blood, vitiated since a century. The Medecis inoculated the royal blood of France with the dissolving virus of a decayed Italy. Now Charlea IX., from his birth to his death, belonged to his mother. She inaugurated in France the political in■idiousncss and perfidy of her anceatois. She desired to make Charlea IX. a Medecis, and all but succeeded. Charles IX , following M. Gruyer, was not wicked by nature; he caught that contagion from the infested air in which he lived. He was brave, and had a contempt for life : he was never allowed to "fight," so he put all his courage in dissimulation. Vengeance took then possession of him ; he regarded it as a duty, akin to heroism, a part of religion. His tutor, deGondi, instructed him in the art of dissimulation and vengeance. Charles commenced to curse at everything, and at all moments. But the vengeance taught Charles was not that of a fair and frank character, above board, which exacted eye for eyo and tooth for tooth. It was Italian vengeance, crooked, canning, hypocritical, which caressed the better to assasinate. France had devastated Italy, and the latter, as revenge, dishonoured France. Italy imposed her manners on France, a« she did her paintings. The massacre of St. Bartholomew on the 25th August, 1572, was the expiation of the attempt made on the life of Charles himself, the 27th September, 1567. For him, at least, it was a private revenge, with others, a political or religions conspiracy. For that massacre Charles claimed the entire responsibility, but he guarded in his soul a wound which nothing could cure, not even the glorification of the deed, by two frescoes in the Sixtine chapel, and visible to this day —though minus their Lattin in* •criptions, along side the triumph of the Christians over the Turks, the battle of Lepanto. Charles bore the excreable crime the remainder of his days; the expression of his visage changed into severity and a contempt for life. His irritation became not so much a disease as a malady, in truth his death set in from the day of Bartholomew, and he died at the castle of Vincennes, 30th May, 1574, at the moment be was arranging to march at the head of his army to re-conqueror his kingdom. He expired bravely, and welcomed death as deliverance. He never held much to life; when he was prohibited from fighting he replied, " That his life was not of such great importance that it should be so preciously guarded like crowned jewels in a casket." It is inexact that Charles IX died of poison, a common occurrence at the time. Pare states, his death was due to excessive blowing of the hunting born; as he was notoriously fond of hunting. The truth is, he was worn out, the blade had used up its scabbard.

Tripoli and Tripolitania, are destined to play an important role in the future, either by becoming an Italian colony, or, as the direct neutral highway into the Soudan. It ia an undefined, looselyunited territory, having an area of 625,000 squae miles. Tripolitania, is composed of several regions, more or less inhabited, and deserts. It is a rocky, atony, argilaceous, and sandy. But it is a pure political fiction to describe it as homogeneous. Viewed from the sea, Tripoli appears charming, with its minarets, the masts of the shipping aud their different flags contrasting with the blue water. The population is 30,000, the one sixth being Europeans, and these chiefly Maltese or Italians. The native men and women dress nearly alike, they differ only in the manner of draping the togas or jupons. Women have three of the latter ; gauze, silk, and wool, one over the other. There are several beautiful villa residences in the suburbs of Tripoli, in well-shaded and well-flowered palm groves. Eohlfs says, whoever possesses Tripoli will own Soudan. He urges the Italians to lose no time in " protecting " Tripolitania, aud executing a railway to tap the Niger and the Congo. The French from West Algeria, can compete with this important commercial route, by their proposed grand trunk Timbuctoo line.

Where wa3 the garden of the Hesperides ? The twelfth labour of Hercules was to go to the extremity of the eartb, and carry off the golden apples, that the three sisters cultivated in a distant kingdom, uniting theit chants with the sound of the waves. The golden apples had a surprising virtue ; it was with them that Juno paid her fortune to Jupiter ; it was with, them, that Discordjsowed troubles in Olympus, and by them, Hippomene so well served himself in her celebrated flat-race with Atalanta. The Latins were as ignorant as the Greeks, as to the situation of the garden, where the famous trees, their leaves and branches, as well as their fruits, were resplendent with gold. It was not, according to M. Antichau, the Greek, but the Phoenician Hercules, Melkarth, who set out in search of the garden. The former lived in the time of Priam, whilst the latter, more ancient, flourished fourteen centuries B.C. After extraordinary exploits, Hercules arrived before the entrance of the garden ; his passage was barred by a horrible dragon, Laving one hundred heads, with eyes open day and inght ; from every head escaped a distinct roar. Deceiving the monster's vigilance, Hercules smashed its heads, carried of the apples, and took an overland journey home, across southern Europe. Stripped of fable, the matter of fact is this ; Hercules represented the Proenician race, whose enterprises were bold ; mistress already of the Mediterranean, Tyre desired also to reach the Ocean, and to arrive there, had to resort to tact, cunning, and audacity, to overcome the obstacles— human as well as material. The slaying of the material monster was on a par like the Isthmus connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; attempted to be opened by Barneses, Danut, and Ptolemey. The golden apples were supposed to be simply oranges ; that tree, whose crown is at once composed of fruit and flower, being apparently unknown to the ancients. Fliny makes no allusion to it. The daughters of Atlas grew oranges, and traded in them, and at gathering time, sang joyfully— like all harvesters, and hence, why they were mistaken for sirens, for the gaidou was situated at Hyeres, following some. However, later authorities place the garden on the Guinea coast of Africa. To reach it Hercules had to brave the Ocean -kill the hydra, and pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, and it is presumed, that the golden apple* — dropping the figurative, mean gold dust, or nuggets. Hercules was the personification of the Phoenicians, trading to the African gold coast ; the Gambia and the Niger. It was their reputation for their metallic riches that attracted the many invasions of the Atlantes and the Iberians, aud Hercules simply went in turn to seek neither apples nor oranges, but gold nug pets, and to this day the "Poules," tho descendents themselves of the ancient Atlantes or Lybyians, bring down to the coast pellets of gold in exchange for merchandise. The ore was formerly transported to the coast to be crushed, and washed through sieves filled with water, according to tftrabo ; or in vessels, following Herodotus Women weie employed to gather the pellets, with feathers smeared with pitch, ai modern "washers" employ mercuiy. They wbiled away their time, singiug like sirens, hence became tlie Hflsperi'lps, with soooroua and harmouiout voice*.

Ailmiral de In Graviere maintains that the history of nations is the history of their armies. He points out that the fate of the world on tin cc occasions hung on the issue of a natal battle, Salamis, Actium and Lcpanto, and it conld well happen, judging from the tendencies of modern naval constructions, the same may occur again. The 7th of October, 1571. witnessed the overthrow of the maritime supremacy of the Turks. That battle of Lepauto was the fortuitous concourse of two armies, almost equal in numbersandenconntei ing withinanarrowarena already celebrated by the sanguinary stingfile of Octivius, Antony, Doria, and Barbaiossa. The total combatants numbered 172.000, of whom 85,000 were Chnstians. The losses of the victors were known to be 13,000, and that of the defeated were estimated at 60,000. The Turks said of this defeat, which for ever deprived them of the Empire of ths Seas, "the Christians have ouly shaved our beards." But the beard has never since grown. The battle commenced at noon, and finished at twiJight. It was virtually decided in the course of an hour, aud would not have been prolonged had not Doria, like his grand uncle in 1538, adopted too subtile tactics engendering confusion. It is not only on land that masses of combatants will concentrate, on sea great powers will henceforth by thousands of ships and of all dimensions. The sea too, henceforth, will have its battalions, and the admiral recommends not to quit too readily beaten paths— the old tactics. The power that shall know how to separate judiciously from the traditions of the past will appear on the nautical scene with all the advantages of a Bonaparte at Montenotte and Rivoli. The old captains will remain amazed at the newfangledness, as did the Austrian generals, dumbfounded and crushed by the audacity of General Bonaparte.

The letters of M. Bikeias gives a very clear account of the present condition of Greece, when the kingdom ia about staking its very life on a cast, and will stand the hazard of the die. About powerfully contributed to rentier Greece unpopular. For him she was a whited sepulchre, the fatherland of theatrical bandits and picturesque blacklegs. Hence why no altars have been raised to him. However, since thirty years matters have changed. For example, Athens, Corinth, Patras, and Argos are now connected by rail. The author never separates his story, topography and ethnography. He visited Ithaca, but in the capital encountered only one specimen of Penelope'i graceful countrywomen. On an islet near Souli reside fishermen, who fabricate the prevesa, the latter being the salted eggs of the mugil, preserved in wax. Arta is remarkable for itslegendary, bridge, its solidity being due to the contractor having enclosed his^ wife, living, inside the foundation-stone instead of old coins and copies of the newspapers, to appease the anti-architectural spirits. This explains why a cock is sacrificed when laying the foundation stones of buildings in Greece. Convalescents also sacrificed a cock to /Esculapius. la Greece the traveller walks on a carpet of wild thyme and marjoran. Messolonghi is "a very little village, built in mud, and on the borders of a lagoon." Byron's boatman, Kazis, still pursues his ordinary calling, and the poet's tomb is well kept beside the Ossury, containing the bones of the patriots of 1822. Greek is rapidly superseding the Italian tongue in the Archipelago. At Patras, there is an Egyptian colony, living quite apart, and dating back to the earliest relations between the Nile Valley and Greece ; perhaps when Athotes and Cadmus occupied themselves with "letters."